Jawbone

Jawbone's UP3 health tracker is having difficulties again before coming to market. The release date has been pushed back before. The third generation health tracker device was originally slated to be ready by the end of 2014. The company has been seized with delays, missing crucial opportunities like the 2014-2015 holiday shopping season. The newly announced 10-11 week delay would put the UP3's release in May. Hopefully, all of the new additions to the UP3 will keep it ahead of the curve in the competitive health tracker device market. Such a delay gives room to competitors to up their stake in the market.

The assumption that you need to strap something onto your wrist in order to accurately gauge your fitness level might not be accurate. Your favorite wearable might not be, either — or at least any more accurate at detecting steps taken than your phone. A new study claims apps are just as good at monitoring your activity level than some of the top wearables on the market. The University of Pennsylvania tested apps and wearables in a controlled environment, and the results are pretty interesting.

Finding natural bed partners for wearables and the internet-of-things isn't always easy, but Jawbone and Big Ass Fans are hoping that the promise of a better night's sleep will be tempt us to link our wrists to our ventilation. Set to show up in a firmware update come February next year, the new feature will see enabling sleep mode on a Jawbone UP wearable or in the company's app automatically put the Big Ass Fan into sleep mode too, intelligently adjusting blade speed and lighting over the course of the night so as to maintain things like room temperature.

Jawbone has delayed the release of its new flagship activity tracker, the Jawbone UP3, pushing the sensor-toting wristband back into early 2015 as it grapples with production. Announced back in November, the ambitious wearable introduces a bioimpedance sensor alongside the usual movement tracking, with which Jawbone is promising not only heart rate monitoring but - with future firmware updates - new metrics like galvanic skin response, respiratory rate, and hydration rate. That flexibility could give UP3 the edge over rival health bands, including the upcoming Apple Watch, but it's also seemingly presenting issues for Jawbone actually getting it out the door.

Jawbone wants to make fitness a communal goal, and to help facilitate that is its newly announced UP for Groups. As its name suggests, UP for Groups allows teams of people (ten or more individuals) to participate in healthier living together. Jawbone is specifically targeting businesses, which it says have requested ways to "support and amplify" fitness tracker usage in the workplace, but the new offering is just as applicable to schools and any other organization or collective.

If you're going to ask someone to wear a fitness tracker 24/7, it better be good, and Jawbone believes its come up with a killer in the new UP3. It's 30-percent smaller than Jawbone's old flagship, with a new design from Yves Behar, but this is no simple remolding of an UP24, however. Instead, it's the launch vehicle for the company's new multi-sensor platform, stepping beyond the simple accelerometer found in most wearables and adding a new bioimpedance sensor among others for not only movement, sleep, and heart tracking, but the promise of even more in-depth metrics that can be unlocked with a simple firmware update. I stopped by Jawbone to find out why UP3 could put other wearables to shame.

Jawbone has clearly taken leave of its senses, if the new UP MOVE is anything to go by. Taking the fitness and sleep tracking that made the UP24 a hit, and then packaging it in a tiny clip-on dongle with six month battery life, the UP MOVE not only promises liberation away from the charger but at a fraction of the UP24's price. $49.99 gets you the sort of wearable tracking abilities that, not long ago, would've cost you three times the amount. I caught up with Jawbone to find out what the big idea is, and why luxury cars might represent the best explanation for the UP MOVE.

Following closely on the heels of Microsoft's new fitness tracker Band comes word that Jawbone has a couple new -- and cheaper -- devices up its own sleeve. One of these devices is called the "MOVE", and it will cost $50 according to The Information, where the tip surfaced. The second device will reportedly be called the UP3, and it will be more expensive, priced at $180 USD, just barely undercutting the Band and proving more expensive than the company's other UP products.

This afternoon we've been having some fun playing with the new Jawbone app called Drop. This app allows you to connect to your RDIO or Spotify account to play music in just about as simplified a manner as possible. Almost as if the folks at Jawbone hired the best User Interface experts they could, then told them to dismiss the UI of RDIO and Spotify altogether. With great effect. And with the ability to share your favorite beats with your buddies through Twiter, of course.

Apple’s HealthKit is a unique platform that lets apps speak to one another, using it as a backbone. What happens when that data overlaps existing app info, though? Recently, Jawbone introduced a version of their UP app that integrates with HealthKit. The app doesn’t require a band, but what if you have one already, and use their other app?